The invention relates, generally, to pinball games and, more particularly, to a ramp for feeding the flippers of such games.
Pinball games typically consists of an inclined playfield supporting a rolling ball, a plurality of play features and a pair of player operated flippers. The player controls the flippers to shoot the ball at selected play features thereby to control play of the game and score points.
In the typical arrangement, the ball is delivered to the flippers in one of two ways. First, the ball can roll down the playfield directly to the flippers. Second, the ball can be shot onto a ramp which conveys the ball to a position adjacent to a flipper associated with the ramp. The ball is then dropped onto the playfield where it will roll to that flipper. Typically, one ramp is associated with each flipper such that when a ball traverses one of the ramps it is delivered to the flipper associated with that ramp.
While such an arrangement has proved successful, it is limited in that the completion of a ramp shot by the player will always result in the ball being delivered to the same flipper. Thus, the flipper to which the ball is delivered is controlled entirely by the player.
A ball delivery system for feeding flippers that provides more complex play and can be game controlled is desired.